People living in inner-city Bradford have the lowest life expectancy in the Yorkshire and Humber region, a new report shows.

The area covered by Bradford City Teaching Primary Care Trust also has the highest infant mortality rate and the highest proportion of low-birthweight babies.

The report brings together health- information statistics about the four primary care trusts which run GPs' services and health care outside of hospitals across the region.

It shows the life expectancy for women born in Bradford city between 1999 and 2001 was 77 or 78 years and for men was 72 or 73.

The primary care trust's area also has a high death rate for cervical cancer, more than double that in a standard population for women under 75.

The very young population in the Bradford City Teaching Primary Care Trust area is also highlighted, with most in the 20 to 24-year-old bracket.

And the link between poor health and deprivation can be seen, with all seven council wards in the care trust's area among the ten per cent most deprived in England.

Dr Dee Kyle, director of public health and community development at Bradford South and West Primary Care Trust, told a Bradford City Teaching Primary Care Trust board meeting these connections were clear. "Poor health goes with poor wealth. Areas that have social and economic deprivation are going to have poor health," she said.

The problems of poor health in the inner-city were long-standing and the care trusts were relatively new organisations.

"The primary care trusts are, I think, beginning to start to get to grips with it," she said.

The report also showed that death rates for breast cancer and skin cancer for people living in the Bradford city area were the lowest in the district.

After the meeting, Bradford City Teaching Primary Care Trust chief executive Lynnette Throp said one of its core aims was to improve the health of the population.

"The effects of deprivation and poverty have an enormous impact on health and wellbeing and we are committed to tackling these issues through partnership approaches to neighbourhood renewal, community involvement and community health development," she said.

She said staff were actively developing services to respond to the needs of all communities, such as diabetes clinics in GP practices, children's community nursing services, bilingual speech and language therapy and health promotion with Asian focus groups. "We recognise there are still many challenges ahead," she said. "But we are confident that our future service plans, strong community involvement and commitment to tackle existing health inequalities will bring about real changes to people's health and overall quality of life."